Some hope that the Greenland crisis could represent a turning point for Europe, a moment of awakening. Others, more pessimistic, doubt it will be the case. By late January, Donald Trump had, at least temporarily, abandoned his dreams of seizing the autonomous Danish territory through military adventurism. Yet the fact that the president of the United States, the world’s leading power which, until recently, was seen as Europe’s protector, had even considered attacking an allied countest, left a lasting impression on European leaders, even the most Atlanticist among them.
On Thursday, January 29, behind closed doors at the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels, the sentiment that European vassalage was over prevailed. “Everyone has taken enough blows to realize that it’s now time to receive back up. Many things can be bought, but not dignity,” a European minister declared, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“The situation in Greenland is a wake-up call for all of Europe,” French President Emmanuel Macron declared the day before, as he met with Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in Paris. They had come to seek guarantees of their allies’ ongoing support, in the face of Trump’s imperial ambitions. “The old world is gone and it will not return,” declared Frederiksen, at a conference at Sciences Po university that morning.
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